On May 9th, tomorrow, Politiken newspaper will publish their Mary interview. It will be 5 pages with the interview and photos. The quote, that Mary is saying is
Kronprinsesse - det er svært bare at sige det ord -Kronprinsesse - it is hard just to say that word. I hope a Dane will buy it and translate it. :flower:

announcement in Politiken today may 7.

In the next sunday-issue of Politiken, may 9, there'll be published an unique interview with Mary Donaldson.

It's the famous interviewer "Ninka" who formerly has done indepth interviews with QMII and Crown Prince Frederik, who has done the interviews, as the only daily paper in Denmark.

Throughout the last two month, through seven sessions, all in all 20 hours, Mary Donaldson has been interviewed by Ninka. The photographer, Tina Harden has taken quite new, private photos of the future Crown Princess.

At sunday, may 9, Politiken will bring the interview and pictures - 5 full pages in all

In the Sunday ed. of Politiken Søndagspolitiken an interview with Mary Donaldson is published this weekend.
Main story:

- She and Frederik want to have many children, whom they want bring up themselves, not isolated from others

- Already 2 years ago she met with Queen Margrethe. The first meeting went fine. Both she and the Queen were nervous&#33; Which helped to make it a succesful meeting, which paved the way for the rest.

- About Frederik she says: he has human qualities. He is a warm personality with a warm heart. Loyal. Honest. Funny. Nice to be with. He is curious and surprising.

- They met by fate. If they hadn´t met eachother at the Olympic Games in Sydney 2002 they surely would have met at Tasmanian regattas later.

- The monarchy´s place in society has become a different one from former times. It´s requires wisdom to adjust monarvhy in order to survive in an egalitarian/more horizontal society. She tackles problem like these quite ´businessminded´, analytical, used to analyse ´the market´.

Originally posted by sky@May 8th, 2004 - 5:31 pm In the Sunday ed. of Politiken Søndagspolitiken an interview with Mary Donaldson is published this weekend.
Main story:

- She and Frederik want to have many children, whom they want bring up themselves, not isolated from others

- Already 2 years ago she met with Queen Margrethe. The first meeting went fine. Both she and the Queen were nervous&#33; Which helped to make it a succesful meeting, which paved the way for the rest.

- About Frederik she says: he has human qualities. He is a warm personality with a warm heart. Loyal. Honest. Funny. Nice to be with. He is curious and surprising.

- They met by fate. If they hadn´t met eachother at the Olympic Games in Sydney 2002 they surely would have met at Tasmanian regattas later.

- The monarchy´s place in society has become a different one from former times. It´s requires wisdom to adjust monarvhy in order to survive in an egalitarian/more horizontal society. She tackles problem like these quite ´businessminded´, analytical, used to analyse ´the market´.

Intuitively I knew that the first meeting with QMII had to go well, and I asked myself how am I going to handle that? Because of this thing called: Protocol, something quite new to me. It isn&#39;t something you normally experience in Australia, it doesn&#39;t excist in the same fashion as in Denmark where the royal family is very extrovert, thus making everybody know how to behave. In fact Frederik didn&#39;t instruct me much before the meeting. I think he didn&#39;t want me to be too nervous. He more like hinted that his mom was a quite ordinary person, as you and me. And that she probably would be just as nervous as me. This made it feel something more normal for me. Of course we did talk about it, but it was never like something tremendously important, or that I had to make a grand impression on the queen. It wasn&#39;t like that - but suddenly the time was set for the meeting and I said: Oh, gasp&#33; That was it. The only we did talk about before the meeting was protocol. But Frederik only said: Be yourself.

It was when I was living in Paris, before I moved to Denmark. For this Thing: to move to Denmark, that depended on how the parameters was set. If there had come a strict command: This person you are forbidden to meet&#33;, we had to reconsider the what to do. The timing for instance could be wrong. But one always hope that "love conquers everything", but in these circumstances one has to be realistic. But it didn&#39;t end in that situatuion. If it had gone horribly wrong, I think we would have tried to understand what could be so wrong about me. Maybe tried to discuss it with the family and tried to show then that I was a nice and good person. But luckily it didn&#39;t happen.

It was at Amalienborg I met the queen for the first time. The meeting was private and lets keep it that way. But she understood our need to keep the developement of our relationship to ourselves. She recognized that it was serious and she didn&#39;t want either that we new pressure was put on us from the media and others.

Had that meeting ended negatively I don&#39;t know what we would have done. For Frederic to abdicate, that I could never ask of him. He knows his role in life. He has an obligation to that, and I think - and I know that I would never allowed him to do that.

Originally posted by sky@May 9th, 2004 - 7:42 am He more like hinted that his mom was a quite ordinary person, as you and me.

I think that it one of the reasons that Margarethe is so beloved. She seems to be easy going and ordinary. Maybe extra-ordinary because she is so ordinary. I mean being a royal you would think she be not so normal. But she is easygoing and everything. I think Mary fits in perfectly with this House.

Coup as in "Coup d`etat" means he has done something really bold or really good in this case either by luck or by design. In other words, Mary was a very good choice for the House.

Coup means a win or a steal. In the context of Frederik and Mary, the writer is implying that Frederik has a real find or gem in Mary. (Aka Frederik&#39;s done good in choosing Mary as his wife and the future Queen of Denmark; she&#39;s a keeper&#33; :P )

Quote:

Originally posted by sky@May 9th, 2004 - 7:42 am He more like hinted that his mom was a quite ordinary person, as you and me. And that she probably would be just as nervous as me.

Love the second sentence&#33; Shows you how down to earth Margrethe seems to be. Although I can&#39;t see Margrethe being nervous about anything, she seems so formidable&#33;

Thanx Alex and Dennism. I still have&#39;nt found the interview, but here are two Aussie newspaper that put some of the interview in their papers.
From The Mercury

MARY Donaldson has publicly opened her heart for the first time about the extraordinary romance that will this Friday culminate in her crowning as a Danish princess.

In the only interview the Hobart-born former advertising executive and real estate agent has granted before her celebrated wedding to Danish Crown Prince Frederik, Mary&#39;s story can be told for the first time in her own words.

The woman who has captured Danish hearts has candidly told Danish newspaper Politiken how her relationship with Frederik deepened secretly for 14 months before it became public knowledge, the doubts she harboured about their future together and her dread of meeting her future husband&#39;s mother, Queen Margrethe.

During a 25-hour interview conducted during seven sittings since December, the princess-in-waiting reveals her conviction that her remarkable fate was destined, that she was meant to meet Frederik and embark on her fairytale journey.

But she also speaks of her agony over the loss of the two key women in her life, her mother and her grandmother, and how their deaths transformed her spiritual beliefs and approach to life.

And she speaks for the first time about her first great love, a Melbourne man with whom she lived during a seven-year relationship.

She also dreams of using her position to help the mentally ill, in the same way Princess Diana helped various causes after she married into royalty.

On the eve of her transformation from Australian commoner to future queen of the world&#39;s oldest kingdom, Mary says she is overwhelmingly happy, in love and looking forward to her life as a wife, mother and role model for her adopted country.

"I HAVE always known that I would only marry if I met the one and only love," she says.

"I have known that the most important thing had to be totally unconditional love -- unreserved -- and that you recognise it, when it hits you, and that love and happiness go together."

Mary, 32, describes the night she met Frederik at Sydney nightclub the Slip Inn on September 16, 2000, during the Olympic Games.

"Frederik and I started to talk and we simply didn&#39;t stop talking," she said.

"And that was that&#33; A very long talk, which went on for a year or actually 14 months.

"He and his brother went to Melbourne the next day. But about a week later I met with him and his friends for dinner."

Mary reveals the couple suspended plans to spend a prolonged time together when Frederik was hit by a family crisis.

"He was called home because his grandmother was seriously ill," she said.

"He was very upset about it and wanted to leave as soon as possible.

"So we had one and a half days together, having hoped for a whole week to get to know each other a little better."

Frederik&#39;s grandmother, the queen mother, died soon afterwards and he remained in Denmark for much of the next year.

But his romance with Mary defied the distance barrier and he returned to Australia in 2001.

"It wasn&#39;t like it went &#39;bang&#33;&#39; that first evening, that I knew I had met the man in my life," Mary said.

"That point in time is hard to pinpoint. Also because there was this enormous distance between us and long spells between our meetings.

"With this distance, both geographically and in terms of the family environment, you just can&#39;t tell that this is the right person.

"But we were constantly in contact with each other."

The couple exchanged phone calls, letters and CDs of their favourite music.

Mary sent Frederik a Powderfinger album -- "which is still my favourite band"-- and he sent her some Danish ones, among them Sort Sol.

Mary decided to deepen the commitment in November 2001, when a Danish magazine revealed her as Frederik&#39;s new girlfriend for the first time.

"The time had come where we both felt it couldn&#39;t go on long distance. We decided to take the chance and see if we were meant for each other. That&#39;s when I left Australia."

Mary left her job as an upmarket property agent in Sydney&#39;s eastern suburbs for Paris, a one-hour flight from Copenhagen. She spent the next five months spending the weekends at Amalienborg Castle, the royal family&#39;s Copenhagen palace.

But the intensifying media scrutiny tested her resolve.

"While I was in Paris I tried to keep a low profile," she recalls.

"I was waiting for the point of no return in my life, the line that would be crossed when I was seen with Frederik in public.

"If all this turned out to be a fata morgana [mirage] I would like to be able to become &#39;Mary&#39; again.

"Then maybe I could settle down in London or some other place where nobody would recognise me anyway."

But one of the most foreboding tests was still to come: the interview with Queen Margrethe.

Mary knew that if her prospective mother-in-law rejected her it would doom her future with Frederik.

"Intuitively I knew the interview with Margrethe had to go well and I also asked myself questions about how I would handle it," Mary said.

"Frederik didn&#39;t talk much about the meeting beforehand. He basically just mentioned that his mother is a regular person, like you and me, and that she probably would be just as nervous about meeting me."

Mary reveals that while awaiting the meeting with Margrethe, she considered whether she would ask Frederik to leave the monarchy.

"Had the meeting been negative I have no idea what would have happened," she says. "But I don&#39;t think I would ever have asked Frederik to abdicate. He knows his role in life.

"He feels obligated to it and I think -- no, I know -- it would demand too much of him to give it up."

But her fears were unfounded. Margrethe immediately approved of the former Taroona High School girl during their interview at Amalienborg.

"She could see that it was serious and didn&#39;t want to put further pressure on us from the media or others," she said.

Mary also reveals how close she came to marrying before she even met her fairytale prince.

"I had a boyfriend for seven years, but we drifted apart," she said.

"We still have a good relationship. We will always mean something special to each other because we have been through a lot together.

"Seven years is a long time and he was there when my mother died."

Mary speaks of the qualities she has come to cherish in her husband-to-be.

"His vast energy -- spiritually and physically ... his attitude towards life -- he is a very interesting person with a complex personality," she said.

"He fights many battles with himself, like many of us.

"He has a warm, warm heart, he is loyal and honest, almost to the point of being beyond reproach. He is funny.

"I believe Frederik touches people&#39;s hearts. He doesn&#39;t want me to say this but he is also a lonely person, like we all are."

Now, four days before her historic nuptials, divorce is unthinkable to the princess-in-waiting.

"For us, divorce is impossible to imagine. It has always been my view that in love there is only one time -- and that is it.

"People today give up too easily and just say &#39;OK, we have grown apart&#39;.

"I believe you can experience two or three &#39;great loves&#39; in your life, but also that we really hope to find just one that will last."

From The Australian (a bit longer version)

MARY Donaldson, the Hobart-born former Sydney real estate agent who marries Denmark&#39;s Prince Frederik on Friday, reveals for the first time today her most intimate secrets of the world&#39;s greatest fairytale love affair.

I AM, more than anything else, happy.

But "happy" is a really difficult word to explain.

Happiness is just a warm feeling. It makes walking on earth easier. You float. Everything feels good&#33; You see things in a new light.

You don&#39;t speculate so much. To be happy is, I guess, the most important thing in life. Happy&#33;

Since I was a child and up until today I have known that I am a very open person.

I am curious. I have always wanted to see what&#39;s behind the door,

Or what every little thing is about - just to learn new things, to look into it, to know how it is to try it. And then do it. And I think I will go on being that way.

I want to give everything a chance. Try to do my best at all times. I may not be very good at it, but at least I have tried.

I have always known I would only marry if I met the one and only love.

My parents knew each other from when they were 12. They have been together since they were 14, and they were only 22 when they got married.

That is quite young. So I have known that the most important thing had to be totally unconditional love.

Unreserved. And that you recognise it when it hits you. And that love and happiness go together.

On the other hand, I think you can encounter the great love more than once, because life doesn&#39;t always deal you the cards you want.

But it takes strength to find the other love. And it doesn&#39;t take anything away from the first.

People change through life. You change track, and that is one of the great challenges in a relationship, that you have your own independent track to follow and at the same time you follow each other in the same direction.

The biggest challenge in a relationship is to acknowledge the changes, to work with them, but also to appreciate them, to compromise.

The word "happy" sums up how I feel right now.

But at the same time, I know that a lot is expected of me - a lot of different expectations.

And you can&#39;t live up to them all. You can do the best you can.

I guess you could say it&#39;s a modern fairytale.

A fairytale goes on inside your head, I guess, but I would never have been able to imagine this.

It&#39;s a fairytale for everybody to meet the person they want to spend the rest of their life with.

My version is just a little bigger than most.

But at the core of what we do is the same as for all other couples. We remember that every day.

Beyond that, there is another responsibility, so on the way to where we are now, we have in no way been able to take things lightly.

Right now I can say it&#39;s a very happy time. Very happy for us, for my family and for Frederik and his family. Also for those Danes who are interested in the royal family.

At the same time, we know that to some young people we are a kind of role model.

And we will be looked upon as a kind of ideal.

That is something we talk about.

It is very important.

The people who think I don&#39;t do anything at all here must understand I&#39;m in a waiting position. In a kind of no man&#39;s land.

If I started visiting hospitals or other institutions, I would be criticised for that&#33;

I have been in a vacuum. But that will change.

And people will realise that I work, and in time will be carrying out different tasks.

Meant to be together

I ACTUALLY think I believe in destiny because where I am today I couldn&#39;t possibly have imagined, let&#39;s say, four years ago. It makes me believe that there is "something" behind it.

I mean: just the way Frederik and I met, it took so many little things that had to fit together.

There had to be "something" - supernatural? - that took charge.

Predestination is what you are born to do. Destiny is how you do it.

Some might bring reincarnation into the picture. I don&#39;t believe in reincarnation myself, but I am willing to listen and think - and wonder.

One of the greatest challenges in life is to find a balance in everything we do.

Balance between work, family, interests. Balance makes you yourself balanced. Gives you peace in life. Right now the world is really unbalanced.

Justice and injustice exists. The act of balance is in the hand of man.

We have forgotten what the important thing is. We do not focus on what life is really about: love and happiness.

Swapping e-mails and CDs

FREDERIK is a remarkable person. I felt that right from the beginning. Not because he is the Crown Prince, but because he is the person he is.

But I was rather excited about it all. It was so . . . strange, because I didn&#39;t believe it would be possible to get to know each other.

But our contact went on and got deeper and deeper. It happened through letters, e-mail and phone. Almost every day.

We sent pictures and lots of different little items. I sent him a CD with Powderfinger, which is still my favourite band, and he sent me some Danish ones. So we kept track of each other&#39;s lives, and shared what was possible.

I didn&#39;t want to be exposed in any way. It would have been terrible if I had stepped forward and then the next day had to be myself again. I didn&#39;t want to exhibit my life.

At one point . . . I had to tell myself that I had to take the final step. But we ended up taking a step together.

That was November 2001 - 14 months after we met.

The time had come where we both felt it couldn&#39;t go on long-distance. We decided to take the chance and see if we were meant for each other.

That&#39;s when I left Australia.

It really became serious when we stepped out on the balcony at Amalienborg Castle.

When we stood in front of the doors, I tried to relax and take a few deep breaths. I had a feeling I couldn&#39;t go out there . . . it was just so overwhelming.

People cheered the Queen, Prince Henrik and Frederik and then also me, because he has chosen me and we have chosen each other.

Talking went for a year

I MET Frederik on September the 16th, 2000.

Frederik and I started to talk, and we simply didn&#39;t stop talking. And that was that&#33; A very long talk which went on for a year, or actually 14 months.

He and his brother went to Melbourne the next day. But about a week later I met him and his friends for dinner.

After that he travelled around Australia for six weeks. When he came back we met again, but he was called home because his grandmother was seriously ill.

It wasn&#39;t like it went &#39;Bang&#33;&#39; that first evening. That I knew I had met the man in my life. That point in time is hard to pinpoint.

Since we spent so much time apart, anything could happen for both of us. With this distance, both geographically and family-environment-wise, you can&#39;t just tell that this is the right person.

It takes time and you have to test each other, there is so much at stake. But we were constantly in contact with each other.

Time to share our secret

FREDERIK is normally rather relaxed when it comes to the press - but to introduce me to the public was no easy matter for him.

And I am certainly not relaxed about it.

From the moment it got out that Frederik had a girlfriend, who nobody had heard anything about for a whole year, the media had been on its toes. It seemed as if we were getting married the next month.

Maybe they thought he would do like his brother Prince Joachim had done.

Maybe.

So they were all quite excited: "Oh, and we don&#39;t know anything. What should we do?" And they never relaxed, they kept saying that now something is going to happen&#33; It was rather irritating.

But we hadn&#39;t come that far yet. We didn&#39;t let it influence us, though.

We didn&#39;t let it put pressure on us.

But after that kiss on the pier in Tasmania, I guess we got more open. It confirmed that it was serious. And maybe the media could breathe a little easier - they had put their money on the right horse&#33;

Even if for us nothing was finally decided, to them it was a sign that they were on the right track. Now it was only a question about time.

&#39;She is a gift to the Danish&#39;

THE Mary Donaldson interview was conducted over five months by one of Denmark&#39;s leading journalists, Anne Wolden-Raethinge.

Writing under the byline &#39;Ninka&#39; in the Politiken newspaper, Ms Wolden-Raethinge has been the leading Danish royal chronicler for more than 30 years.

The award-winning writer spoke to Mary for more than 25 hours during seven sessions from last December.

"She is a gift to the Danish people. She has a real personality, I&#39;m not kidding," Ms Wolden-Raethinge, 75, told The Daily Telegraph. "We have a fantastic queen now and Mary will be a remarkable queen in her own right."

Ms Wolden-Raethinge said Mary&#39;s command of Danish developed rapidly during the interviews.

"By the last session she was taking notes, writing in fluent Danish. Mary has wisdom but she is also very intelligent," she said.

Ms Wolden-Raethinge said Mary had the "class of a queen" and that Frederik, in snaring her, "has made a coup".

Planning the family is under wayBy Peter Fray
Europe Correspondent
London
May 10, 2004

Mary Donaldson has revealed she wants several children, plans to work with the mentally ill and will not accept "unfaithfulness in marriage". She and Prince Frederik will be under pressure to have children to ensure the 1000-year-plus royal line continues.

In a series of exclusive interviews with the Danish newspaper Politiken, the 32-year-old lawyer from Tasmania said she still felt nervous about being the centre of attention, knowing her every action as Princess Mary would be scrutinised.

"I always hated to be photographed," she said. "Now, I will have to get over that and also learn to behave properly in public.

"There are many norms of behaviour. Just the way I have to walk with him (Frederik). People judge you from a picture, from some wrong information, and this is hard because you can&#39;t defend yourself. I cannot go out and say I&#39;ll give an interview and comment about what is written about me."

The interview with Ms Donaldson, her first since her engagement to the prince in October, took up more than five pages of Copenhagen&#39;s most influential broadsheet newspaper.

She has given up her Australian citizenship and joined Denmark&#39;s Lutheran Evangelical Church in order to marry the prince, who she described as "warm-hearted, loyal and honest".

She said they got to know each other through letters and email before she moved to Copenhagen in 2002. She sent him a Powderfinger CD, he responded with Sword Sol (Black Sun), a Danish rock band.

"He&#39;s very easy to be around with, he&#39;s funny, he&#39;s also curious," she said. "He can be full of surprises."

She paid tribute to her own mother, Henrietta, who died in 1997 after a heart operation. "From time to time, I feel she is very close, that she is just next to me," she said.

Well she&#39;s made a big turnaround. The more people will hear about Mary&#39;s thoughts and feelings the more they will feel closer to her. As she said she&#39;s been in some kind of no man&#39;s land, waiting to prove what she&#39;s all about. As a princess she can go out there and disarm her critics and prove them wrong.

- Unfortunately I have no memory of my maternal grandfather. Not at all. I was only 3 1/2 year when he died. Not even about the ceremony at his burial, in which we participated, both of us. I have seen movies about him from his last years, where I can hear him talk, but it don&#39;t recall any remembrance of him.

- The remembrance comes a little later. For a small boy, the physical distances at Fredensborg and here at Amalienborg were so great that we were used to live in a section all by outselves, from infancy together with our nanny. And this was the normal everyday life for us. We lived at different life, than that of our parents downstairs, of course. We went to school. Had meals by ourselves. And ate different food. You could say we had a completely different life than our Parents. But it didn&#39;t seem strange. You just knew it was like that, and you went in and said goodnight to them. Or sometimes they appeared without warning to see if you had done your homework - it was my father who came, without warning. But we didn&#39;t knew anything about how other children lived, and this made it appear natural for us. So, we didn&#39;t feel that our lives was different from others.

- We visited some good friends in Hellerup (Thor: Beverly Hills), two brothers, who we still see a lot. When we came there to play, or at birtday parties, they had some different playthings than we had, of course, and we thought they had more than us - different cars, exciting stuff which you would like to have, but which we didn&#39;t were allowed to. But I didn&#39;t thougth much about that the surroundings were a bit different. I was concentrated on playing with other kids. Nowaday I like to visit other peoples homes, a watch how other people live. Big house or a little one. Or an appartment. I often walk around a little, to study their home, sneak around, and look around. Not that I pull their drawers og open their closets, but I find it interesting to see how people furnish their home. How nice and cozy they are able to make it. I am very interested in that. I probably have an inclination to live cozy. The room mustn&#39;t be too big. And not to high to the ceiling. The appartment in where I live now is quite suitably, cozy and nice (Thor: At the Amalienborg Palais). You could say warm, physical and mental. It reflects on each other. And there had to be some comfortably furniture. This furtnichure in which we are sitting now, are very fine and grand, and they suit vere well to the room, but they aren&#39;t what I connect with homelike. There must be a big comfortably sofa and a big easy chair. And I have a small fireplace - things like that, I like very much.

We never saw our parents in the morning, because we were gone before they woke up. We saw them in the week-ends. Much. We had lunches and dinners together. But except for that, we soon rushed back to our playrooms. My father was good at pulling us out to do a walk, or a drive in the car, or going to see a movie, when we was in the city in the wintertime. It was nice and exciting, so in a way you could say my father was exemplary. My mother read stories for us between 18:00 and 19:00 in the evenings. Never trivial stories. She had, as always, thougth a lot about her choice of story. We got a heap of knowledge in this way and foodstuff for our imaginations. She was eminent in this. But this stopped when we were about 10 years old. Then many other thing start to happen in a kid&#39;s life.

If my father had been a Dane, we definitely would have had an another upbringing. Now it was a somewhat old fashioned French method of upbringing, we had, my brother and I. When the judge and jury had spoken, you had to howl behind closed doors. I have done that several times. There was that feeling of powerlessness, which you often have towards your parents. It appeared almost hopeless to me at that time. It wasn&#39;t possibly to break through in any way, which you had experience with your friends parents: That it was possibly to have a dialogue, that there migth be two sides to a case. You don&#39;t have the same gifts of tongue as the grown-ups. But nevertheless: That there could have been some kind of two-way-communication and through that : understanding. But this wasn&#39;t possibly. It was just to do it. Get it done. It was just an order. A one way communication. Even later I haven&#39;t discussed it with my parents. It has unfortunately been something which have been avoided. Which have never been touched again. And IMHO it never will, because...it&#39;s a kind of a lost past, yes. It can&#39;t come back, no? And today, all this hasn&#39;t anything to do with my love to my parents. In fact it was first at the silverwedding speech, where I touched the subject in "Spare the rod, spoil the child..", and therefore we were never in doubt that our father loved us very much&#33; He took that as "a good sport" and laughed and thougth it funny. This we had known all the time - that he loved us - but I&#39;m glad, that he can see it as it was, now. He had said himself that he feels, that he had been with us too little, and that he in some ways probably have been too strict. Many parents probably do have the same regrets.

But it&#39;s only in the latest period, we have had the courage to "speak against Rome". Our way to do it came as probably many others: In relation to our finals in A-levels, and when I became 18. My brother followed in my wake, even if he was only 17 and went to Australia. I started in the military. I have often thougth about it as the time where my life really started. It&#39;s only through the last 10 years of my life, that I feel that I have been my own master. Roughly speaking, one can say, I had "lived" in those ten years. Not to say that I was dead before that, mentally speaking, but I had a completely different life than any other kid. With privileges too, but definitely a life in a very fixed frame, limited, physical as well as mental. Since then I have gone my own way.

- Of course there were experiences and things before that, but they were limited. I felt myself very naive an inexperienced compared to my buddies in school. Because they could go out and do things, while we couldn&#39;t, our parents forbid us to until we were 18. I can see now, that it had to be that way, we were too easy to recognize. Better stay at home. But it was felt as a big hindrance, at the time. When we finally became 18, we were allowed to "burn" it all off. In fact we never protested loudly about it and banged with the doors. It was rather like: "Oh well, I&#39;ll keep my mouth shut, then.... I&#39;m only here for the lunch, and then I&#39;m off in an hour again" And you could let your parents stay behind and go on with your own projects, keep your own counsel.

- It was in these teen-age years I realized what it meant to be a crown prince. Not completely, only in part. It wasn&#39;t the balcony scenes during my childhood which made me conscious about it, where a lot of people watching me: suddenly you were in focus. It was more like a moment of excitement: Hey, what&#39;s going on here? It didn&#39;t started any further thought. Around the time of the communion it started to grow on me, and especially the year up to my 18th anniversary.

During my childhood, my parents never focused on underscoring who we were, like making you an important person. They wanted you to be a child. A boy. A human being. A clearcut child upbringing, not a prince upbringing. A deliberate attitude, which I&#39;m very thankful for today. Naturally, beneath this, there was an underlying theme, which I can see now. Uncounscious, but definitely there.

Naturally we had our bodyguards, both in Kreb&#39;s School and in high school. But in the schoolyears they were rather like play uncles, who were nice enough also to play with our buddies too, when they were on visit at our place, or when we were allowed to run around in Østre Anlæg (Thor: a park in central Copenhagen) and at the playgrounds there. But there wasn&#39;t any strange in that, it was a necessary protection. We didn&#39;t consider it "different". We had the same interests as our contemporaries, we talked about the same subjects and saw the same movies. When you don&#39;t know different, you aren&#39;t able to fell sorry for yourself, fortunately, that our way of life had some limitations. Later I have had the possibility of revenge. I have had a lot of experiences and impressions. There are restrictions you put on yourself, and restrictions which are the result of the expectations of others. And you have to try to have the best possibly life inside these limitations. Fortunately these limitations aren&#39;t that frozen and unyielding, as one could suppose. And they migth be overstepped, in caution. Figuratively like a line in the sand, which you are able to step over without falling down and hurting yourself.

There have been times where the life as a "quite ordinary young person" has appeared very attractive. And I have considered it. I have been visiting so many free areas and circles of life, and have a rather free life, in contrast to, what one might think. And once in a while you can&#39;t stop wondering: "How would life be, if I was just an ... ordinary guy...more carefree and easy? There&#39;s pro et contra in my position, if you think the contras were too many, then you might have tried to be someone else.

There&#39;s a responability in it too. I give myself freedom, governed by responsibility. I try to be consciuos about what is going to happen (if I do this or that). Again: Think twice about a situation. Anyway, more than others do, because there&#39;s a difference in our situations, if you are somewhere in the city in the evening for instance. And you are always - always - under review or critisism. Bye and bye you get tough about it, but nevertheless you make notice of it, somehow. Not in the way that it makes deep scars in your soul or gives you a mental trauma, but you know you can&#39;t respond to it, say a word against it. Better get it over with, rather than feed the tabloids with new stuff for headlines and crashing frontpages.

- A person who through all my life has meant a lot to me - and still does - is my grandmother (Thor: Queen Ingrid, who died i 2001, the book is published in 1996). She had the ability to listen and understand us - especially me - no, not me especially ... yes, in fact that&#39;s the way it appered to me. She had always been very interested in her grandchildren, especially the boys, which i felt meant a lot to her, maybe because she hadn&#39;t any boys herself. She had her brothers, whom she took care of in a motherly way (Thor: Queen Ingrid&#39;s mother died when she was ten, and she took care of her two younger brothers afterwards). Perhaps she felt that the boys had to continue the line of the family in another way than the the girls, historically speaking. She has always been very attentive to our wellbeing and our life and during our adolescence. We had an almost buddy-like relationship. She is the one person, who you can come to and talk about anything. During my age of puberty, I could always go to her and grouch and grumble about my parents. Not that she agreed to everything you said, but she was understanding and supporting. I don&#39;t know how much she brougth to my mothers attention, but one felt that when you left her, you felt lighter than when you came. That you had unloaded a big heap from your mind. And was able to go on again.

To the time of adolescence, too, belongs the stay at the boarding school in France. Admitted it was a mucher tougher regime, than we were used to. First of all, it was a completely new situation, to live away from home and your parents for the first time in your life, and to stand up for youself, and manage things by yourself. But it wasn&#39;t so much that, which were spooky, the worst. Because in a way it was very exciting, an educatial year too. You felt you became more experienced, growed older. But the life at a boarding school down there, it was toughening you up, you had to be hard as a nail. You learned to fight back, physically and mentally. Not that we was in an eternal fight down there, but there was frictions and confrontations. We wasn&#39;t physically punished by the teachers, but in the peer gruop there was a kind of jungle law. It was somewhat tough. In spite of the fact that my brother and I was the eldest in our house, we were often together with our contemporaries and learned their rituals, which could be quite specific.

My Brother

The boarding schhol was my father&#39;s idea, but I didn&#39;t thougth it was a bad one. I didn&#39;t really was homesick because there happened a lot. So in many ways it was a useful year. It brougth me and my brother closer together. We have always meant a lot to each other, to have each other&#39;s support, much more than we were aware of, before we went to the boarding school, because we always did everything together. We were raised that way. Fortunately there&#39;s only one years difference betweeen us, we were almost like twins. It&#39;s inceredibly nice, when you are only two (siblings), to feel that you have the support of the other. I have leaned a lot on him, when I was younger, because I was more unsure of myself than he. It has meant a lot for me to have his support, to reach a bigger decision.
In many ways we are each other&#39;s best friend. Even if we don&#39;t talk more that a couple of times a week, we are always able to get advise from each other, and hear the other&#39;s opinion about a situation. You have confidentiality, loyalty between us. Unconditional. All this wasn&#39;t so clear to us, when we were younger, but it is now. When we look back at that time now: We have been indispensably to each other. And like that, we&#39;ll continue to be. Definitely. I don&#39;t feel that someone has taken him away from me, because he is married now (to Alexandra), and consequently will fly from the nest - from the bachelor appartment , here at Amalienborg Palais - to another nest, to south Jutland. There will still be that: confidentality.

I only learned about the danish royal family especially crown prince frederick during his wedding to cp mary. I can't help but admire the wedding speech he gave during the reception. It was very eloquent and touching. It seems that he is quite good in making speeches...does anybody have any beautiful lines or quotes from him?